Jesse Cannon in the studio.

Statistically, at least according to an informal survey of bar patrons I conducted last weekend, Williamsburg and Bushwick are home to more musicians than most other parts of the city. Which should mean that all of us are more than familiar with the tired trope of the struggling musician who’s just waiting to be signed: the bands playing to the same group of 20 friends each week, and somehow guilt you into paying that $5 cover almost every time; your drummer who hops from piss-stained mattress to piss-stained couch while he’s waiting for his “big break”; that 300-press of your band’s CD you made that you’re now using as a nightstand. As much as New York is the place we all come to dream big, it’s also the place we watch those dreams, and our bank accounts, slowly shrivel and die.

Enter Williamsburg-based music industry veterans Jesse Cannon and Todd Thomas. Cannon has not only been producing and managing bands for more than a decade, with groups like Animal Collective, The Misfits, The Cure, Leftover Crack, The Menzingers and Man Overboard; he, along with his partner Thomas, has been covering the way the music industry ‘s been rapidly changing on his blog, musformation.com. And just this week, the two of them decided to turn that blog into a comprehensive, 700-page look and DIY guide to the real way the music industry works today: Get More Fans: the DIY Guide to the New Music Business.

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Zadie Smith

Should be an interesting night at our favorite bookstore, Word:

Literature lovers promise to pour out of WORD Bookstore next week, when award-winning British author Zadie Smith comes for a visit.
Smith, a prolific writer renowned for her best-selling book White Teeth, will present her new novel NW and speak along with author Hari Kunsru (who penned Gods Without Men and The Impressionist) at the cozy Franklin Avenue shop next Tuesday evening. Dozens of fans on Facebook have already confirmed their plans to attend the free event.
The recently released NW, following four characters in London and hailed as an “urban epic” by Joyce Carol Oates in The New York Review of Books, will be available for purchase at the store after Smith’s reading.

Zadie Smith’s reading and conversation with Hari Kunzru will be held at WORD Bookstore Oct. 9 at 7 p.m.

Remember when Williamsburg was “undiscovered,” hipster-free, and gritty? Do you remember Kokies? Robert Anasi does and vividly chronicles turn-of-the-century Williamsburg in his new book The Last Bohemia with a wit and charm that never descends into mere nostalgia. Documenting Williamsburg’s arresting transformation from grit to glitz, Anasi’s book is a vivacious celebration of New York’s most adored — and despised – neighborhood.

You can see him tonight in that other last bohemia, Greenpoint, as he does his first New York reading at The Word. More information here.

From the New York Times

In 1992, New York magazine anointed Williamsburg, Brooklyn, as “the New Bohemia.” Two decades later, Robert Anasi delivers a bittersweet verdict on the neighborhood’s stunning ascent. Williamsburg may not quite be “The Last Bohemia” (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, $15) as he proclaims (there’s still room for Bushwick and even the South Bronx). But he vividly realizes his subtitle: “Scenes From the Life of Williamsburg, Brooklyn.”

Mr. Anasi lived in Williamsburg for 14 years, through the thick of its revival. He fetchingly explores the fluorescence of his old neighborhood as well as the gentrification and commodification of a place that, however briefly, belonged to artists. But, when he decamped at age 40 for California, where he writes and teaches journalism, the decision was an easy one. “I didn’t feel guilty about leaving Williamsburg,” he writes. “Williamsburg had already left me.”

Buy the book here and check out this great review in the Los Angeles Review of Books.

Tonight the Booklyn Artists Alliance (note no r) will be holding a shindig at Spike Hill:

featuring an exciting auction of fabulous eccentric artworks, readings, music, giveaways, and general good times to celebrate Booklyn artists and the completion of the cataloging of the First Booklyn Decade Archive.

It’s free, and there may actually be literate members of the opposite sex.

186 Bedford Ave, 7-10pm

Unless you have a review copy or grabbed the leak on Amazon you’re going to have to wait until Tuesday to read the new Jonathan Franzen. Thankfully, The New Yorker has a sneak peak of the first two chapters.

If you’re jealous of President Obama for getting his hands on an advance copy of Jonathan Franzen’s new novel “Freedom,” don’t fret: versions of the book’s first two chapters, originally published in the June 8, 2009, and May 31, 2010, issues of the magazine, are available on our Web site. Read “Good Neighbors” and “Agreeable” while you wait—patiently or impatiently—for the book to go on sale Tuesday.

This Saturday at Enid’s:

Books Through Bars moved, and we’re having a party to get us back on

our feet! It features awesome librarians and excellent music, so

you’d best be there.

The Desk Set (a group of young librarians who throw dope parties to

raise money for organizations promoting literacy) are hosting a party

at Enid’s in Williamsburg to pay for the postage we need to get back

to sending books to people incarcerated all across America.

After our old space was damaged by fire, Books Through Bars moved to

our new home in Freebird Bookstore, and we’ve built up a big backlog

of packages that need sending and letters that need replies. 100% of

contributions go to either postage or packing supplies, but we’re a

bit behind and need plenty of help.

So, now you know what your Saturday holds: dancing, drinks and librarians.

Books Through Bars benefit with The Desk Set @ Enid’s, 560 Manhattan Avenue in Williamsburg

10pm and on. Suggested Donation at the door.

I was already sitting at my computer on Monday when I “sat down” with Tao Lin (blog, twitter), author of the recently released Shoplifting From American Apparel, to have a little gchat about being fucked, Dan Brown’s new book, and his new life as an internet t-shirt model.

I volunteered that we’d keep this interview embargoed until next week sometime, but am posting it now so the New York Times will see they’re not the only ones breaking those things these days.

Here, have a look at what we talked about!

An Interview with Tao Lin, author of Shoplifting From American Apparel

me: hello

tao: hi

me: shall we chat?

tao: yes

(No, that’s not it! There’s more! After the jump…)

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From AP
Author Saul Bellow dies
image c/o Dmitri Kasterine

Saul Bellow, the Nobel Prize-winning author of “Herzog,” “Humboldt’s Gift” and other essential tales of memory, chaos and the sensitive soul in 20th century America, died Tuesday. He was 89.
Bellow’s close friend and attorney, Walter Pozen, said the writer had been in declining health. Pozen said Bellow’s wife, Janis, and daughter, Naomi, were at his side when he died at his home in Brookline, Mass.
Few writers have been so honored in their time. He won three National Book Awards: in 1954 for “The Adventures of Augie March,” in 1965 for “Herzog” and in 1971 for “Mr. Sammler’s Planet.” In 1976, he won the Pulitzer Prize for “Humboldt’s Gift.” That same year Bellow was awarded the Nobel Prize, cited for his “human understanding and subtle analysis of contemporary culture.”
In 2003, the Library of America paid the rare tribute of releasing work by a living writer, issuing a volume of Bellow’s early novels.
“The backbone of 20th-century American literature has been provided by two novelists — William Faulkner and Saul Bellow,” Philip Roth said in a statement Tuesday. “Together they are the Melville, Hawthorne, and Twain of the 20th century.”
Bellow was the most acclaimed of a generation of Jewish writers who emerged after World War II, among them Roth and Bernard Malamud, leading Bellow to joke that he and his two peers were the “Hart, Schaffner & Marx” of literature. To American letters, he brought the immigrant’s hustle, the bookworm’s brains and the high-minded notions of the born romantic.